The Cougar's Pawn by Holley Trent Page A

machine. “We’ll talk everything over in the morning when clearer heads prevail.”
    He took the humidifier and stuck his tongue out at one of his brothers’ might-be bride. “If I’d known your best friend was some kind of
sorceress
, as you put it, we might have just left you be.”
    “No you wouldn’t have,” Mom said.
    Mason cut her the evil eye, but as always, she was entirely unaffected.
    She was right, of course. He hadn’t had a choice. Besides, Ellery was an alpha’s wet dream, even for an alpha who didn’t want to be one. Strong mates made stronger alphas. Mom was the reason his dad had been able to keep a strong grip on the glaring. She’d taken no shit and hadn’t let Dad, either. Maybe that was what Mason had been missing for the past five years. Someone to make him want to be a better alpha. At the moment, though, he’d be satisfied with someone who merely didn’t make him want to yank out each and every one of the hairs on his head.
    Again, he started for his own house, keeping an eye on the desert that demon had skittered across. What the hell had she done? It had seemed to be heading toward the hellmouth, but Ellery couldn’t possibly know where that was. He’d thought she’d tossed it away from them—made it someone else’s problem. The fact that didn’t seem to be the case flummoxed him.
    The Cougars couldn’t do that—banish a spirit or demon. They could only chase it back to the hellmouth and encourage it to return to its own domain. Once it went back through the portal, it wouldn’t have the strength to immediately return. The local witches said it took a hell of a lot of energy to enter the mortal plane.
    But to send it back for years? How had she known how to do that?
    He found her in the kitchen breaking spaghetti noodles into the pot. She didn’t even look up at him.
    “Nick’s asleep. Fill that thing quietly and go plug it in. Maybe it’ll keep him from coughing throughout the night.”
    “Ellery, I—”
    “Make sure there’s no rust in the parts.”
    He ground his back molars. She’d gone and done it again, telling the Alpha what to do. His reaction would always be to go on the defensive and prepare for a confrontation.
    “Are you waiting on me to say please and thank you? He’s
your
son.”
    The cougar part of his brain backed down moments before the man part did. She wasn’t a threat, at least not imminently, and it wasn’t like she was wrong … just
snippy
. He headed into the utility room, and rinsed the grimy humidifier parts in the deep sink.
    “Is there any mold or mildew in it?”
    He turned to find her leaning in the doorway with her arms folded over her chest.
    “No. Not that I can see. Mom wouldn’t have put it away damp.”
    “Might want to disinfect it tomorrow, anyway.”
    “Yeah.”
    She went away.
    He gave his head a shake and turned back to the sink. At least she wasn’t quite so snippy. She probably believed he wouldn’t have thought of the mold on his own, and, well … she was right. He just didn’t think about that stuff. Lacked the common sense for it, maybe. It was just like being alpha, only instead of overseeing the glaring, he was caring for his kid. No less worrying with just the one person to concern himself with, though.
    As he worked, calm enfolded him and released him from his high alert. His cougar instincts overrode his man’s untrusting proclivity. Cougar didn’t care if Mason wasn’t the one in charge in the house. Cougar wanted to get out of her way, but not too far. He didn’t want his mate to run. It was his other part of the brain that had all the hang-ups.
    Being the one in charge all the time kind of sucked, and he wouldn’t dare tell his brothers how sick of it he was, but he suspected they already knew. Hank kept begging to take some of the burden from him. As Mason’s Second, being observant to his needs was part of Hank’s job, but Mason didn’t even know where to start delegating. “Alpha”